


Cyclamen

by thebriars



Series: Agapanthus and Arcacia [7]
Category: Victoria ITV
Genre: M/M, Sad, Victorian Flower Language, edward continues to be dead, happy valentine's day i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 10:55:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13680264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebriars/pseuds/thebriars
Summary: Cyclamen (resignation, good-bye)Alfred visits Edward on a different kind of  summer evening.





	Cyclamen

**Author's Note:**

> happy v day

Sunny summer eves made his heart falter.

Alfred had stopped his grieving. He had returned to soft gray-blues rather than sorrowful blacks. He had started to sleep again. His eyes didn't feel raw anymore and the tears only came once in a while.

Nevertheless, summer evenings were never the same.

What had once been enchanting was now a message to a time long gone and a man long dead and a love long buried.

The gravel crunched beneath Alfred's feet. The patchwork shadows from the canopy of leaves above him allowed for a familiar distraction.

Headstones passed and Alfred wondered who grieved for them. They stood solid and resolute, names and dates that couldn't be changed or forgotten carved into their faces with melancholy precision.

Charlotte Monroe, Thomas McVay. James and Julia and John. So many names and dates and Alfred felt as cold and hard as their markers.

 _Stifling grief is deadly_ , Wilhelmina had whispered one night. She watched Ernest and Harriet perform their intricate dance of casually disguised flirtation with a longing gaze. Alfred had turned to the bouquets on the side tables and had tried not to speak.

He felt like a headstone nowadays. A cold and untouchable heart and a name and a date written on his soul. A quiet reminder of a dead man. A man forbidden to grieve for his love. A pawn in the game of life and death and a pawn in the hands of love.

Alfred stopped at the familiar grave, nestled in the care of an overgrown willow. He crouched beside it, a hand on the cold stone, and pressed his newest flower into its shadow.

Cyclamen, for resignation. Would Edward see his message? _I'm sorry for letting you go._

_I'm sorry for not visiting._

_Do you forgive me?_

_I'm sorry for marrying and I'm sorry for having to leave you behind._

_Do you remember me? Do you remember our flowers and the warmth of the sun and the enchanting song of Scotland and the taste of a kiss and the feeling of human touch?_

_Are you more than a memory?_

A press of lips to the top of a headstone in the light of the setting sun, a soft whisper, a hand trailing over stone, and Alfred was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> welp
> 
> and that concludes this seriesss


End file.
